Hair is commonly curled with heated curlers or a curling iron. Conventional hair curlers are well-known in the art and are advantageous in that the user can place as many curlers as desired in the hair and then go about other activity while the curls set. The curlers can be left in the hair for the desired amount of setting time and are capable of providing as firm and long-lasting curls as the hair will hold. Several different size curlers can be used to vary the size or tightness of the curls. One disadvantage of curlers is the difficulty in grasping hair ends and then winding the hair smoothly and securely around individual curlers. Another disadvantage is the necessity for finger contact with the hot curlers, particularly when picking them up or grasping a section of hair to the curler to begin the process of winding the hair around the curler. Because of these disadvantages, using curlers can be cumbersome and painful.
Standard curling irons are also well known in the art and are advantageous in that they have a handle that eliminates finger contact with any hot surface and provides a clamp for grasping the hair to the barrel of the curling iron, thereby making it easy to begin winding the hair and ensuring that the hair is smoothly and securely wound. A curling iron, however, must be manually held the entire time each section of hair is being curled, so that curls can only be formed serially, with the curling of each hair section being completed before the next is begun. This process, which is repeated until all curls are completed, can be tiresome and lengthy, or result in curls that fall out easily if the user grows impatient and uses insufficient setting time. Moreover, most curling irons have only a single barrel, resulting in only one size curl.
Thus, a hair curling system is desirable which would have the advantages of both heated curlers and a curling iron, without their disadvantages. The prior art contains several combination curling iron/hair curler devices, none of which fully meets this need. Therefore, it is the object of the present invention to provide a hair styling device that provides a handle-curler combination that allows a user to manipulate a curler without touching the hot portions, that allows a user to clamp their hair to the curler to begin the rolling process, and that allows easy disengagement of the curler from the handle in the user's hair.